


Muted

by Demon_Virgil (Asteria_Anxiety)



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Bullying, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 11:58:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16853599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asteria_Anxiety/pseuds/Demon_Virgil
Summary: Virgil hates his voice to the point that he prefers not to speak.(transferrig this from tumblr since shit is going down)





	Muted

Virgil was uncertain of how long he had felt this way. Uncertain of how long he had wished he had just been born mute. Of how long he had felt this hatred towards his own vocal chords.

Maybe it was a recent thing or maybe it had been there his whole life his hatred just grew stronger for every time he got reminded of it.

It kept him from feeling comfortable in his own skin. Around other people.  Hell, some even assumed he was born mute due to him refusing to speak. And it made his already bad anxiety worsen to a degree that he refused to leave the house. ‘If I never leave, no one will see me and need me to speak up’ was his thought.

He never wanted to go outside unless he absolutely had to and even then, he would refuse to leave unless he could keep his headphones with him. And later on his phone. Just so people wouldn’t talk to him.

 

Unfortunately, the world seemed to think otherwise. His family wanted to see him becoming more confident, like Roman, Logan and Patton, who all sounded normal. They wanted him to be more open about himself, to speak to more people. To find his place. None of them seemed to understand just how bad he hated himself, hated the voice he was born with, hated the idea of speaking with anyone. Typical, most of them were the perfect extrovert or had learned how to cope with people in Logan’s case. He had been the one who used to understand him the best.

Except then he didn’t. Logan didn’t understand why he couldn’t just speak up, why he couldn’t just stop hating such a huge part of himself, why he couldn’t handle being around people. Even though he tried, he couldn’t understand how he felt.

 

His old school found his anxiety hilarious and loved to tease him for his hatred of speaking. “Ohhhh, he’s actually got a voice!! Hey, speak up! We can’t hear ya!”

“Ohhh, he says he’s got anxiety now! How lame! There’s no such thing as anxiety! Unless it’s a new name for stupidity! In which case it fits perfectly, doesn’t it Anxiety!”

“Did you hear something? I think it was the sound of a mouse! You gotta speak up, you big crybaby!”

“Whatcha gonna do about it? Tell the teacher? She won’t even be able to understand what you’re saying over how stupid you sound!”

The teachers weren’t much help. All they could do was tell him to just grow a backbone and fight back. Tell them off. Oh, and it would be great if he would speak up more in class. He clearly had the answers!

 

His parents tried their best to help him, but every time it ended up being another ‘Just do it! There’s nothing to be afraid of!’ type of lesson.

Roman even tried to give him acting lessons, which he found fun as long as it was just Roman acting silly and putting on character voices. Like the Dragon Witch, the fairy princess, the brave prince.

But every time it got to Virgil, he just froze up; his voice stuck in his throat, refusing to get out. Even when Roman told him to forget himself and just be the character he was supposed to be, he could only ever croak out half a line before he shut his mouth and refused to open it again.

  
  


And it all culminated when the school decided to send him to a special needs teacher to work on his voice. So he could learn how to talk without sounding nasal, they had said. At first, he wanted to follow her instructions, he really did. She listed the things he needed to improve. Which was a lot.

But he just didn’t want to be there. She was way too happy about him being there. And didn’t let him speak when he actually did try to say that he didn’t want to be there. It didn’t help that she treated him like a kid. Well, he was one at the time, but a younger kid. Like he was a baby just learning how to talk. And he hated that so much more.

So he did what he always did when he felt uncomfortable around other. He kept his mouth shut and kept refusing to do what she wanted him to.

It took some time, but the lady finally got the message; he was not going to do this.

And that experience stayed with him for the years to come, reminding him of the fact that there was something wrong with him. And with his voice.

 

For years he tried to change his voice, mostly due to a wish of just being able to finally be him without this awful curse of a voice. He tried putting on a voice, sounding deeper, changing his speech patterns, nothing worked. Every time, he kept coming back to it.

And when he did gain friends he felt comfortable enough to forget about his internal struggles, he kept getting reminded of how bad he felt. They were fun and caring and here he didn’t always need to talk verbally. Because he found friends online. He could just type, and no one would be none the wiser that he had these struggles.

 

And with time, they started having calls.

With time, he even unmuted his microphone and people were so supportive of him. They called him brave and even said he sounded cute. But even then, he started to prefer not to have it on anymore. To just type again. His friends were still supportive of him, but they were confused as to why.

Virgil knew why. He hated to admit it, but he was jealous. He was jealous of these other people who didn’t have to repeat themselves every time they spoke. Who didn’t have to worry about speaking too fast or too low. Who had a healthy hatred of their voice when hearing it in a recording. Not like it was with him.

They thought his hatred was just like theirs and didn’t seem to understand why it kept him from speaking. They would keep saying that his voice was just fine, that they were able to understand him, even though they still asked him to repeat himself.

But they grew aware that it made him self-conscious and tried their best not to do it. Virgil appreciated it, even though he tried to keep out of calls with people if there was a lot of people he didn’t know. He would keep trying.

He tried his best to become more confident and with time, he started to forget how much he hated it. He started feeling like he could actually function as a person and his family praised him for it. But it kept coming back. People kept pushing him to be even more outgoing. To be what they would consider as being normal.

And when he found out that reading scary stories online had started to become popular, he wanted to jump on the train. He even bought himself a nice microphone and saved a bunch of stories he could do. But every time he heard his own voice in his editing program, he ended up shutting it down without saving it.

He knew that this hatred was illogical and that there was nothing actually wrong with his vocal chords. That if he had to get used to it, he had to listen to it. But he couldn’t

He just kept hearing that lady’s words repeating in his head, reminding him of just how bad it was.

And it was stupid. He was 11 at that time for fuck’s sake! Why couldn’t he just get over this thing!? Why did he have to be the one stuck with a voice like this? Why couldn’t he just be normal? Why did these problems refuse to go away?

And why did he have to want to do so many things with his voice when he hated it so much?

 


End file.
